Portfolio · Concept Model Exploration internship

Sketch it.Build it.Play with it.

Miguel Ángel Medina Lazcano

Mechanical engineering student from Madrid. I have been building with LEGO® bricks all my life, and I spent four years turning pencil sketches into real racing cars. I like designs nobody has tried yet.

Available February 2027 Can relocate to Billund Sketching · 3D CAD · Workshop

One of my concept sketches for a new car, top and side

01 · Why concept model exploration

I find the idea by building it.

Your team turns ideas into models that show the minimum viable play. That is how I already work: rough first, fast, and in the open, so other people can react to it.

A lifelong builder

I have played and built with LEGO bricks all my life. It is where I learned that the quickest way to test an idea is to make it.

A pencil first

Every car concept I led started in my sketchbook. I drew those pages to help teammates get past the blocks they hit during design.

Structure and mechanism

I study how things carry load and how they move: chassis, suspension, composite shells. I use that to make concepts that hold together.

02 · What you look for

Four bricks I would bring.

Curiosity

“What if the chassis were carbon?”

My team had raced steel frames for years. I asked whether a carbon shell could be lighter and still as stiff, and spent my thesis finding out, through seven laminate versions.

Bravery

Starting from a blank sheet

Eight months after joining the team I became its Managing Director. Instead of evolving the old car, I proposed a clean-sheet concept and stood behind it for two years.

Focus

Priorities change weekly

I wrote my thesis in three months while directing the design of a new car. One week was drawings, the next the workshop, the next a competition.

Vision

One picture everyone shares

A team of more than 80 people needs one clear picture. I drew it, explained it, and created the ISC Academy so new members could learn it and add to it.

03 · Sketchbook

I think with a pencil.

Pages from my sketchbook for two racing cars: whole-vehicle layouts, aero surfaces, brackets and mechanisms. None of it was meant to be pretty. It was meant to get a team unstuck.

Drag or swipe sideways →

Concept sketch in top and side view — Whole-car concept, top and side

Sketch titled The creation of IFS-07 — “The creation of IFS-07”: evolving the previous car

Perspective sketch of a sidepod and wheel — Sidepod and wheel in perspective

Aerodynamic packaging sketch — Aerodynamic packaging

Sketch of a floor with a venturi channel — Floor and venturi channel

Sketches of front wing elements — Front wing elements

Sketch of a powertrain support bracket — Powertrain support brackets

Sketches of chassis triangulation and a bracket — Chassis triangulation and brackets

Sketch of mounting brackets — Mounting brackets

Sketch of structural members — Structural member layout

Notebook page with equations and bracket sketches — Notes and composite brackets

Plan layout sketch with packaging notes — Plan layout and packaging

Plan views with numbered reference points — Plan views with reference points

Front wing section sketch — Front wing sections

Handwritten line: 07, an odyssey to the impossible — Hand lettering for the team’s season line

Hand-lettered number 133 — Hand-lettered car number

04 · From idea to object

Sketch, model, build, test.

The same loop your team runs with bricks. Here it is on the last car I led, the IFS-08.

Sketch the whole thing

A rough plan of where everything lives: wheels, driver, structure. Quick enough to throw away and redraw.

**1 · Sketch**A rough plan of where everything lives.

**2 · Model**The full car in 3D CAD, every part placed.

**3 · Build**Frame, suspension and wiring, by hand.

**4 · Test**On track at Formula Student Austria, 2026.

05 · Structural and mechanical

Put material only where the load goes.

A good brick model and a good chassis follow the same rule. For my bachelor thesis I designed a carbon-fibre shell for a racing car and let simulation show where each layer was needed.

Designed the shape in SolidWorks and analysed it in Altair HyperMesh.
Seven versions of the layup, each tested for stiffness and strength.
Worked with steel-tube frames and suspension linkages across four cars.

−65%mass, from first to final layup

+49%twisting stiffness

10/10thesis grade

Colour map of carbon layer zones on the shell — Final layer map: each colour is a different stack of carbon plies

Thickness map from optimisation — Where the simulation asks for material

Front suspension linkage on a steel frame — Suspension linkage on the steel frame

06 · Hands-on

I like having my hands in the build.

Four seasons in a student workshop, building a new racing car each year.

Workshop tools: machining and milling.
Composites: mould-making, gelcoat, glass-fibre lay-up and cutting carbon fibre.
Assembly: chassis, suspension and bodywork, fitted and refitted until it works.
Drawings: CAD models and technical drawings for manufacturing and suppliers.

Miguel sitting inside a bare racing car frame in the workshop — Testing the fit myself

Car frame during assembly with suspension and wiring — Mid-assembly

Steel tubes held in a welding jig — Frame tubes in the jig

Green bodywork being fitted in the workshop — Bodywork fitting

07 · A tool I invented

I turned a rulebook into something you can explore.

The Formula 1 technical rules run to 976 articles. I found them hard to picture, so I built RULEMAP: an app that draws every rule onto the car. You click a part and see what is allowed there.

I defined what it shows and how you explore it, and built it with AI-assisted coding.
It shows that I explain complex things by making them visual and playable.

RULEMAP showing coloured regulation volumes over a car seen from above — Allowed volumes drawn over the car, seen from above

RULEMAP zoomed on the floor with labelled hotspots — Zoom in and the detail appears

08 · Your list, my experience

Where I am strong, and what I want to learn.

Your advert lists skills you like interns to have. Here is an honest account against it.

Skill	Status	Evidence
LEGO model building	Yes	A lifelong builder. This internship would be my first time doing it professionally.
Sketching	Yes	Concept sketchbooks for two cars, plus hand lettering (section 03).
3D CAD programs	Yes	SolidWorks, Siemens NX and 3DEXPERIENCE. Full-car assemblies and part drawings.
Machine workshop tools	Yes	Machining and milling, plus composite moulding and lay-up.
Graphic design	Some	Lettering for team clothing, teaching material for the ISC Academy, and the RULEMAP interface.
Structural and mechanical design	Yes	Frames, suspension and a carbon shell (section 05).
3D printing, electronics, woodwork, sculpture, textiles, painting, video	To learn	I have not worked in these yet. I would like to, and I learn fast with my hands.

About me

Off the clock.

Judo, tennis and skiing. Music and travelling. I studied abroad in Dallas and Dublin, so moving to a new country and a new team is familiar.

I work best in a room full of people who are better than me at something, building things together and asking “what if”.

Studying: MSc Industrial Engineering (Mechanical), Universidad Pontificia Comillas ICAI, Madrid. Finishes June 2027.
Before: BSc Industrial Engineering (Mechanical), same university.
Team: ISC Formula Student Racing Team, 2022 to 2026: chassis member, Managing Director, then Mechanical Technical Director.
Now: Junior CAE Engineer at Managing Composites, Madrid, until December 2026.
Languages: Spanish (native), English (fluent, C1).

Contact

Let’s build something.

Available from February 2027 and able to work on site in Billund.

m.medinalazcano@hotmail.com

Phone

+34 620 187 205

linkedin.com/in/miguel-angel-medina-lazcano

Personal portfolio by Miguel Ángel Medina Lazcano. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this page.